The Ubisoft Forums have numerous posts from gamers in Australia beginning before last weekend complaining of difficulties playing Settlers 7 due to difficulties accessing Ubisoft's "always on" DRM servers, which are apparently not always on. There are discussions of various workarounds, but nothing that seems to get consistent results. Thanks Games On Net.

I hope Ubisoft bites the fucking bucket because of this bullshit. People pay money for your fucking games, and they're UNABLE to play their game because of your retarded DRM.

How has this not turned into a giant lawsuit yet? (here in the US anyways.)

God help us if people can start suing for disruption of services. Every time there was bad weather, we'd be suing the shit out of satellite television, cable, internet or phone services, electricity. Every time a flight was canceled because of mechanical problems, we'd sue the airlines. Roads closed because of ice or snow, sue the city.

I do think this is a good time to start lobbying for standardization of how DRM is described on game packaging, so that people understand what might be required to actually play a game they've bought and hopefully can make more informed decisions about whether or not they're comfortable with the particular copy protection that game uses.